My Characters are Alive and Won’t Listen to What I Tell Them

So, I sit down, turn on my computer, pull up my story file, and start writing. All is well. What will I have my characters do today? Dialogue. Action. Characterization. Building a world from words. I’m king of this world. Everyone has to do what I say. Right?

Hang on. Why did Bob say that? I didn’t tell him to say that! Who does Bob think he is? I didn’t write him to be such a jerk!

And why is Tiffany suddenly a lot snarkier than I imagined her? And since when was Arnold so philosophical? I’m writing a thrilling adventure, not an excuse to sit around and contemplate our navels!

It’s happening again. My story is coming alive before my very eyes. And it does not recognize my authority.

It happens to the best of us. We outline our work, we prepare, we research, then we sit down and actually start writing – and it all gets away from us. Scenes don’t play out the way we planned them. Characters put words in our mouths, rather than the other way around. The story shifts and rumbles, it wakes up, and our creation becomes a living thing. IT’S ALIVE!

But how can this be? How can the imaginary have a will of its own?

Don’t look at me. All I know is that I had no idea Hermes liked tequila when I started writing A God Walks Up to the Bar.

They start talking to you, these characters. They start telling you their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears. And when you acknowledge that they are real people, or as close to real as is possible, you reach an epiphany. Your story is better for it. Like the journalist who sits down for an interview with questions prepared and is sidetracked by the subject’s fascinating anecdotes, the population of your created universe reveals new and tantalizing quirks that flesh it out.

Still, it is somewhat bewildering when your story gets away from you. Even when your cast deigns to submit control back to you, you can’t always shake the feeling that you’re just along for the ride. You’re graciously being allowed to witness events as they unfold. A giddy experience, to be sure. I don’t entirely know what to expect when I begin a writing session. But doggone it, these folks need to have some respect! Stop pulling me off-track. We have a story to write! We have deadlines! I can’t be distracted by Alice’s unfolding tragic backstory and face the temptation of adding another 3,000 words! I’m writing genre fiction, not Les Misérables!

And so it goes. The writer lays the foundation, the characters give their input, I tell them what I want them to do, they push back, I push back, and somehow, out of this beautiful mess, a story is born.

I love being a writer.

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